Do they have kids, Dad?”

Our three children would always ask that question when missionaries visited our church or home. For them, a positive answer meant they would get to meet and play with new friends after the service.

My wife, Sharon, and I have pastored smaller churches in the Northwest Ministry Network for more than 40 years. The closest and best place to eat in town was usually our home. And hosting missionaries was a highlight for our entire family.

Our missionary guests often shared inspiring stories, such as the testimony of a witch doctor becoming a follower of Jesus and eventually pastoring the local church in his village.

For years, our dining room table centerpiece was a coffee cup filled with dozens of missionary prayer cards we collected from our visitors over the years. Each evening before dinner, we randomly drew a card from the cup and included that missionary and family in our mealtime prayer. Although our children are grown and no longer living at home, they still talk about that tradition.

Like many pastors’ kids, our children were constantly exposed to missions. At an early age, they filled bright, yellow Buddy Barrels with coins to support Boys and Girls Missionary Challenge.

As a family, we also collected money for Speed the Light, made faith promise pledges, attended missions conventions, and sampled international foods at missions-themed fellowship dinners.

During their teenage years, our children participated in short-term missions trips, traveling to such places as Ireland; Guadalajara, Mexico; Spain; Panama; and Romania.

Then came the day when missions became more real to us than ever. Our youngest daughter announced she and her husband were feeling a call to full-time missionary service in Phnom Penh, Cambodia — more than 7,000 miles away from home.

Before we knew it, they were packing their suitcases and moving to the other side of the world. We cried at the airport as they left, and we’ve cried many times since.

We always taught our children to be obedient to the voice of God, and they are doing just that.

But as I’ve often said, I would rather have my children halfway around the world in God’s will than out of God’s will here at home.

Our missionary daughter and son-in-law now have three young children. Like all grandparents, we long to snuggle those precious little ones in our arms. Yet most of our visits happen via FaceTime.

More recently, our son and daughter-in-law left the Seattle area to serve as missionaries in Brussels, Belgium, taking four more of our grandchildren thousands of miles away.

Even now, tears fill my eyes when I think about it. But I am also filled with awe and gratitude as I count my blessings.

A few months ago, I was updating the missions board in our church lobby. I placed missionary support certificates around a world map and ran a ribbon from each one to the place of calling.

As I looked at the board, two of the 11 missionaries were our own children. I cried again, not only because I miss them, but also because I remembered how good God has been to our family.

We always taught our children to be obedient to the voice of God, and they are doing just that. Now we must do the same. Their call to missions has become our call as well. It means sacrifice for them, and sacrifice for us.

Their call to go was our call let them go by releasing them to fulfill what God wants to do in and through them.

It is not easy. Some days are harder than others. But little by little, we are learning what it means to give everything for the mission of God and trust Him with the results.

Jesus said, “No one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life” (Luke 18:29-30).

We have added two more missionary prayer cards to that cup on our dining room table. Perhaps our missionary son or daughter will one day visit your church. And maybe your little ones will ask, “Do they have kids?”

If that happens, please tell your children, “Yes, they have kids … and those kids have grandparents!”